


The Atlantis Experiment

by aadarshinah



Category: Big Bang Theory, Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Ancient John Sheppard, Episode: s05e12 Wormhole X-Treme, Episode: s10e06 200, F/M, Geeky, Homophobia, Humor, M/M, Post Season 5, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Sentient Atlantis, Television Watching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aadarshinah/pseuds/aadarshinah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the series première of the new <i>Wormhole X-treme</i> spin-off, <i>Pegasus X-treme</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Spin-Off Postulate

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this entirely on [lita_of_jupiter](http://lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com/). For the full cast list of _Pegasus X-treme_ see [here](http://aadarshinah.livejournal.com/91107.html).
> 
> This takes place onstenislby after S5 of my [Ancient!John 'verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/11336) and at any point in _The Big Bang Theory_ timeline.

"Would someone please turn off the Sheldon commentary track?"  
\-- The Big Bang Theory "The Monopolar Expedition"

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door's already open when Penny walks in to find the boys in their customary spots in the living room. "Hey guys," she asks. "What's up?"

"The series première of Pegasus X-treme, the spin-off of the quirky Canadian-American military science fiction drama Wormhole X-treme, is about to start," Sheldon tells her without looking away from the television.

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah," Howard says. "They've only been talking about making it for the last three years. According to the fan sites, it was almost scrapped three or four times because the writers wanted to put in a homosexual relationship between the head of military and head of science."

This surprises Penny. Most of the television shows the boys watched seemed to be filled impossibly attractive women that they, in real-life, would never get close to. But whatever. She's broke, and if she wants to get them to buy her dinner, she'll have to watch their silly show. "So, what they decide to do?"

"Subtext," says a voice she doesn't recognize from the door, hand raised to knock on the frame. "Lots and lots of subtext. Pissed a lot of people off." The man – a very attractive man in military uniform, Penny would be blind not to admit – shrugs, as if it to say what can you do. "I'm Colonel John Sheppard, United States Air Force. I'm looking for Doctor Cooper and Doctor Hofstadter. I was told this was their apartment."

"I'm Doctor Hofstadter," Leonard says, standing. "What can we do for you Colonel? Sheldon's not tried to order any more yellow cake uranium online, has he?"

"No, I haven't. Which you know full well, Leonard. And," Sheldon breaks in, "can't it wait until later? Pegasus X-treme is about to start."

Colonel Sheppard raises an eyebrow at this but says nothing, just looks at his watch and frowns. "Damn. I was supposed to be back on base half-hour ago. I'm never going to get used to these time zones. Mind if I watch it with you?"

Penny's eyebrows almost go to her hairline at this. Hot guy and science fiction show? In her experience, those two usually mix about as well as Raj and women.

Looking just about as surprised as she is, Leonard agrees, saying, "Sure," in completely baffled tone.

"But," Sheldon interrupts again, "no talking during the show."

The Colonel raises his hands, as if to say wasn't going to, and takes a seat on the floor by Raj, pausing only to send off a quick text on a phone so high-tech that even Sheldon looks away from the TV long enough to eye it speculatively.

Well, Penny thinks, this is going to be interesting.


	2. The Beaming Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the première of the new Wormhole X-treme spin-off, Pegasus X-treme...

"Well," Howard says once the credits start rolling, "that was promising."

"Yeah," Leonard hears himself saying as he eyes the Air Force colonel sitting on their floor speculatively, "definitely more so than the première of Wormhole X-treme."

"What I don't get is how they expect us to believe that the Old One managed to survive in stasis when it's already been stated in previous franchise canon that stasis only slows down the ageing process to zero point five percent. After ten thousand years, he should have aged fifty."

"Maybe," Raj offers, "Old Ones live longer."

"Or maybe," the Colonel says, rising to his feet, "the Old One is just special somehow."

Sheldon harrumphs. "It reeks of being a nothing more than a blatant plot device, that's what, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. For now."

The Colonel raises his eyebrow. "Well, that's good to know. Now, if you don't mind, can we get to the top secret portion of tonight's entertainment?"

It's only because he's sitting right next to Penny that he hears her mutter something that sounds like it's always the hot ones at all, before she too stands and says, "Well, that's my cue to leave. See you guys later."

The Colonel watches her leave, then looks at Raj and Howard, who are still on the couch. "That means you too guys," he tells him.

"Are you sure? If you're here to recruit Leonard and Sheldon for top secret project, certainly we'd have to be involved too – I'm Howard Wolowitz, this is Rajesh Koothrappali. We all work together at the university."

"Nope."

"Are you sure our names aren't on there somewhere?"

"Speaking of names," Sheldon interjects, "what was yours again? I wasn't paying attention earlier. Oh, and for the record, we don't work together. Howard's just an engineer with a lowly master's degree, and Doctor Koothrappali is a B-rate physicist at best."

"We share an office!" Raj protests.

"An office space? Yes. Credit for contributions to string theory on time-dependant backgrounds in D-dimensional de Sitter space? No."

"It's Colonel John Sheppard, United States Air Force," their visitor repeats, scrolling through something on his PDA – a model that Leonard's never seen before – for a moment before tucking it away and finishing. "And, sorry, no. I've only got Doctors Cooper and Hofstadter on my list. So..." he gives them a causal wave. "Bye."

Howard and Raj are nearly at the door when Sheldon asks, "By Colonel John Sheppard, United States Air Force, do you mean Doctor John Sheppard, who won one of the 2006 Fields Medals for his solution to the Riemann Hypothesis?"

"I'm also one of the technical advisers for Pegasus X-treme. I'd have thought that would be the one you jumped on first, actually – and," the Colonel adds when he sees Howard and Raj starting to turn around at this, "while I'd love to stay and chat about it, Rodney will kill me if I'm any later than I already am, and I really am here for work. So you two, skedaddle," he makes a vague, dismissive motion at them, and, "and you two," he points at Leonard and Sheldon, "can tell me how you feel about coming to work on an interesting project."

"I thought," Leonard finds himself saying, "that the US government blacklisted Sheldon from working on anything top secret after his last attempt to buy yellow cake uranium."

"Will you stop bringing that up?" Sheldon snaps. "It was only a little uranium. Not even enough to start a sustainable nuclear reaction. I don't see why everyone keeps making such a big deal over it."

"You were trying to buy nuclear materials on the internet. How is that not a big deal?"

"If I could interrupt?" Colonel Sheppard says, and Leonard's surprised to see him locking the door behind Howard and Raj. "First of all, it's technically an international consortium that you'd be working for and, second, if you want to know more, I've got a couple of non-disclosure forms here you'll have to sign first."

"What sort of top secret program could a man who's a technical advisor to Pegasus X-treme be a part of?"

Sheppard raises an eyebrow. "An interesting one."

"I dunno," Leonard says, glancing through the non-disclosure agreement he's been handed. "I've learned the hard way not to sign anything without letting my lawyer look over it first."

Sheppard's eyebrow goes higher, and, for a moment, he says nothing while he looks about the apartment, taking in the whiteboards with Sheldon's latest attempt at solving M Theory and the cylon toaster on the counter without any greater reaction than that.

(Normally this is the point where Leonard would start making excuses for all their SyFy collectables, but this man had just watched the première of Pegasus X-treme with them. He's a man who obviously understands the way good science fiction can draw you in, and convince you need a toaster that burns the image of a cylon raider onto a piece of bread.)

Still, the moment stretches out long enough that Leonard's starting to feel compelled to say something, just to fill the silence, when the Colonel says contemplatively, "You guys like Wormhole X-treme – and Pegasus X-treme – right?"

"Well yes," Sheldon says with a note of haughty derision. "I would have thought that would be obvious."

"Well, what if I were to tell you that it was real – or, at least, based off of a top secret program run by the United States Air Force?"

"I would refer you to the nearest psychiatric facility."

"I see," Sheppard says, obviously trying (and failing) to contain a smile. He pulls out his PDA once more, taps something on it, and suddenly the room is full of a bright, white light-

-and suddenly they're all three somewhere else, standing in front of the largest window Leonard's ever seen outside an aquarium, beyond which the planet Earth is sitting, lazily, as if this sort of thing happens ever day.

Leonard looks quickly at Sheppard, who's practically beaming now, and then at Sheldon, who's gone whiter than a sheet.

"Welcome," Colonel Sheppard says, "to the USS George Hammond."


	3. The Cover-Up Corollary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're in outer space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know who to blame for this one. Maybe myself, for rewatching the orginal Star Wars trilogy and deciding Carrie Fisher would make a good Elizabeth for Pegasus X-treme. The whole cast of charector's is [here](http://aadarshinah.livejournal.com/91107.html).

"We're in outer space."

Colonel Sheppard raises his eyebrow to a height Leonard's never seen outside of science-fiction. "Yes."

"How are we in outer space?"

"Asgard beaming technology." This means absolutely nothing to Leonard. The Colonel, apparently, sees this and takes pity upon him, and explaining, "Basically, our bodies were just torn apart at the atomic level, carried in a high-compression data stream about two hundred miles straight up, to the Hammond in orbit, and resembled," as he takes a chair from a near by table and spins it around. "Think," he concludes, sitting in it backwards, "Star Trek, only without the mirror universes whenever something goes wrong. And things rarely ever go wrong with the beam itself; the Asgard perfected the design twenty million years ago."

"Ah," he says again. "What's an Asgard?"

"A highly advanced race from the Ida galaxy. Well, they call it Ida. I think you lot call it the Antlia Dwarf galaxy. They're basically like the Nahuatl in Wormhole X-treme, only grey. Well, were, anyway."

"Were?" he repeats faintly. Leonard has always assumed aliens existed, somewhere, but are either single-celled extremophiles that humans wouldn't discover for hundreds of years yet, or are so highly advanced that, even if they could cross the interstellar distances separating them in a reasonable time frame, they don't think humanity is worth the bother. The idea that they did consider it worth is is, well, almost more startling than the beaming technology. After all, Star Trek prepared him for transporters, but not for aliens visiting pre-warp societies and letting themselves be featured on the SyFy channel.

"They kinda did the whole ritual suicide thing-"

"Stop!" Sheldon cries out. He doesn't look like he's going to faint any more, but he's clapping his hands over his ears and saying, "Stop! Stop!"

Amused, Sheppard asks, "Why?"

"I don't want to hear any spoilers."

This pulls Leonard out of his own I'm in space, there are such things as aliens stupor, enough so that when he turns and says, "Sheldon!" he sounds vaguely back to normal. "We've just learned that everything we ever imagined is true and you don't want to hear any more for fear of spoilers?"

"Don't worry," says a voice from the door – a woman in a dark blue flight suit with a long, blonde braid down her back and a pair of patches on her chest proclaiming her both Colonel Samantha Carter and a member of the USS George Hammond's crew, "there's very little direct correlation between the us and the shows.

"Don't listen to her. Sam's just bitter because they make her character out to be a – how did you put it?" Colonel Sheppard breaks into a wide grin as he laughs, "Oh, yes – space bimbo."

"That's a riot coming from you, Kirk."

"Hardly," he says dryly, completely forgetting Leonard and Sheldon. "Anyway, I know I'm here because my meeting with the president went over-"

"They have a tendency to do that," Sam nods understandingly.

"-and I needed to get these two marked off the list before heading back, 'cause I promised Rodney and Radek they wouldn't have to deal with Doctor Cooper until they absolutely had to... So," he says, ignoring Sheldon's protestation of hey, as he continues, "that's why I'm here. Aren't you supposed to be on leave this week? Something about a cabin in Missouri or Mississippi or-?"

"Minnesota," Colonel Carter corrects with a sigh. "But Jack's fielding calls from various IOA representatives who're angry we're putting another American in your old position. So we figured, why not wait until he's not going to be on the phone every five minutes putting out fires? We've only been putting it off for for months already."

With more seriousness than someone in an American military uniform should have, Sheppard asks, "Would it help any if I defected to Canada? Rodney's finally stopped pestering me about it, so now would be the perfect time to do it."

She snorts. "Probably not, no. Then they'd just be on the phone complaining about having two Canadians in key positions, rather than two Americans. So," she says, seeming to finally remember he and Sheldon are in the room, "welcome to the Hammond. I'm Colonel Samantha Carter, her commander."

"But, more importantly," Colonel Sheppard interrupts, "she's the basis for Alexandria Monroe in Wormhole X-treme."

"John!" she admonishes-

-but he continues undeterred, his smile growing bigger, if at all possible, "And her husband's the man behind Nick Danning."

Leonard's still gaping (and Sheldon appears to be choking on all the things he wants to ask the basis for Alexandria Monroe, whose science is almost as flimsy as some of the costumes they had her wear in the earlier seasons), when Carter turns on Sheppard. He expects her to look angry, or annoyed, or something, but she just looks amused, "You know, I'm starting to get why you insist on telling that to every fanboy you recruit – I don't suppose you've told them which character is based on you yet?"

Sheppard's face immediately looses any hint of amusement it had a moment before. "You wouldn't."

"Turnabout's fair play."

"Yes but-"

"They're going to find out eventually."

"But you know they'll have questions, and I'm running late enough as it is – and you don't want to do that to Rodney. I mean, 'Lantis has been bad enough, complaining about being back on Terra-"

"Fine, I'll take custody of them, "she says, raising one hand to the earwig Leonard just now realized he was wearing. " Collins? Beam Colonel Sheppard back to his previous coordinates, will you? Yes, just Sheppard. Thanks Collins."

Sheppard is beamed away in a flash of white light even before she finishes her sentence.

"You've got to show me how that works," Leonard finds himself saying.

"Physicist then?"

"Experimental. Sheldon over there is theoretical. I'm Leonard, by the way. Leonard Hofstader."

"I'm an astrophysicist myself... The show got that much right, at least. Actually," she sits on one of the nearby benches and gestures at them to join her, only mildly concerned when Sheldon starts going from seat to seat in attempt to find his spot, "there is pretty much a one-to-one correlation with the show and the Stargate Program. Oh, they've changed a lot of stuff to make it action-packed TV drama and all that, but the Asgard were the Nahuatl on the show; the Ancients are the Old Ones. The person they – loosely – based on me is Alex Monroe. And I'm relatively certain the character in Pegasus X-treme they fashioned after him is called Mike, or Micaelis, or-"

Sheldon beats him to the question. "You mean Major Mike Shepherd is Colonel John Sheppard?"

"Yes."

"But Major Shepherd on Pegasus X-treme is an alien. A ten-thousand-year-old alien."

Carter can't stop grinning. "Exactly."

Sheldon looks like he's about to hyperventilate, and Leonard's finding it rather hard to breathe himself. "You're saying," he manages slowly, "that Colonel Sheppard is an alien?"

"Technically he's a highly-advanced evolution of our own form, his race having seeded a couple dozen galaxies with devolved forms of their own genetic coding sixty-five million or so years ago, but... yeah. He's an alien."


End file.
